A Season with Mark DeRosa and Brandon Belt

Someone told me yesterday that I hadn’t had a walk-off hit since 2007, and I joked, “I haven’t played since 2007.’’ That’s kind of how it feels, like I’ve been away from the game forever.

For two years, I’ve been running onto the field for everyone else’s heroics. Finally I got to come through with the game-winning hit Tuesday night.

“Show me some love!’’ I said to the guys when they rushed at me. “I want you to come get me this time!’’

A moment like that makes us all Little Leaguers again. The most grizzled veterans are leaping out of their shoes. It’s a moment of pure fun and excitement, and it recaptures everything we love about the game and why we ought to be grateful every single day that we get to do this for a living.

The irony of getting that big hit is that I had stopped trying to muscle the ball, something I realized just wasn’t working with my post-injury wrist. Pride and ego get in the way sometimes when you come up to the plate. You want to hit a home run; you want to drive the ball; you want everybody to go crazy. But I needed to concentrate on shortening my swing – basically taking a two-strike approach to all of my at-bats. It’s more like playing pepper with the ball. And these pitchers are throwing so hard that they supply the power for me.

I’m also a guy who likes being at the plate when the game’s on the line. You see certain guys shy away from it, and certain guys accept the responsibility. I once asked Derek Jeter why he’s so good in big situations. He said, “There’s nothing that’s going to happen out on the field tonight that hasn’t happened before. I’ve played great and I’ve played terrible. It’s going to be somewhere probably in the middle.’’

So that’s what I tell myself when I go to the plate: Just relax, have fun, soak it in.

And it’s working. I read all the stuff people were writing that maybe my career is over. But I didn’t feel that in my heart. And Tuesday’s hit, and frankly the way I’ve been hitting in general lately, is validation that I can still contribute.

The most dangerous part of Tuesday night came after the walk-off knock when Pablo launched into his crazy handshake with me. He has a different one for every guy. Mine ends in two forearm bashes, and let me tell you, Panda is throwing some lumber. But I was prepared and escaped with no breaks or bruises.

A few thoughts about Panda:

Everyone talks about his offense but he’s having a great year defensively, too. He has ungodly talent. As he matures and gets smarter and hopefully listens to Beltran a little bit, I expect to be watching him in the All-Star Game for a long time to come. The best compliment I can give him is the ball sounds different coming off his bat than it does with 99 percent of the players. And he loves the game so much it’s contagious. You can’t measure the value of someone like him in the dugout and in the clubhouse.

Thanks for reading. Heading to the field. See you back in San Francisco.

I looked up from my locker Saturday afternoon and there in the middle of the clubhouse was Barry Bonds. He just walked over and started saying hi to everyone and soon we were talking hitting. Then he took a seat and eight or nine of us pulled up chairs around him. And off he went. And we weren’t going to let him go.

It was like a graduate seminar on hitting. Beltran asked Bonds why he choked up on the bat. Bonds said it was about bat control. It took more of the handle out of play and gave him more barrel. We got the sense in talking to him that the bat became an extension of his arm. It was like one big arm. (I don’t know that feeling.)

Bonds talked about what he sees from certain guys – Cody, Beltran, Pablo, Pat, me. He told Pat he has a tendency to be a little jumpy at the plate, meaning that he goes out and tries to get the ball and pull it to left field. That’s why he pulls so many balls foul because his bat is out there too fast. He told him to trust his hands and stay back.

For Panda – well, I think the average fan knows what Panda’s problem is. At the plate, he’s just so darn talented that he gets away with swinging at everything. But Bonds told him to find the pitches he knows he can handle instead of trying to handle them all. He told Panda to work himself into better hitter’s counts. Pablo is capable of winning batting titles with the hand-eye coordination he’s got, and that’s what Bonds reiterated. He just needs to be more selective at the plate. (Personally, I would love to go inside Panda’s head for an at-bat and see what he’s thinking up there.)

As for me, I’ve always been an inside-out hitter: I try to work the ball up the middle or the other way. Barry said I have a tendency to do that too much and that it takes power away. That sounded very true to me. But with my wrist I’m a little limited. So I think inside-out is the best way for me to compete right now.

But what I discovered is I think a lot like Barry Bonds does at the plate – even if we don’t have exactly the same results. In talking to him, you understand that he took absolutely everything into consideration: counts, who’s pitching, how that pitcher throws against similar hitters, whether there are runners on or if the bases are empty, how to work himself into a count where he’s likely to get a certain pitch that he can handle, how he makes adjustments on a pitch he can’t handle.

I approach hitting the same way. I go up to the plate with a plan every time. In Saturday’s game, when I came in to pinch-hit in the ninth, I was facing Bryan Shaw, a young kid with a cutter. That’s his go-to pitch. Cabrera’s on first. The score is 7-2. I really can’t impact the game too much. So I figure Shaw is going to throw me his best pitch. And he did. That’s a pretty easy case.

But if you get a guy like Ian Kennedy who has two-plus pitches – his fastball and his change-up – and he’s got two strikes on you, you don’t know what he’s going to throw. He’s got enough confidence and guts to blow a fastball by you, so you better be ready for the fastball but he’s got a good changeup. It’s the game within a game.

That’s why it was so fun to talk to Bonds. He’s one of the very few players who was almost able to master hitting — him, Ted Williams, Willie Mays. Of course, they possess innate ability that is on a different level from normal humans. But in talking to players like them, you understand that no matter how great you are you don’t stay in this game on sheer talent. You have to be mentally tough. You have to think and analyze.

I remember playing against Bonds and becoming so wrapped up in watching how he approached every at bat, every pitch, that I’d have to pinch myself and say, “Hey, if the ball’s hit to you, you have to make the play.’’ If he was standing on second and there was a timeout or a pitching change, I’d always go over and ask him questions: What were you thinking there? Why did you lay off that pitch? For me, that’s the only way I’ve been somewhat successful – picking the brains of the great players and incorporating as much as I can into my game.

Clearly, Bonds has been watching us on TV and pulling for us. He’s probably one of the five greatest players to ever play. And for us to have 20 minutes of his time was really a privilege and an honor. I’ll remember that forever.

On my way into the clubhouse today, I saw Miguel Tejada leaving. He told me he’d been reassigned, another way of saying he was cut. I didn’t know Aaron Rowand was involved, too, until I saw him packing up his locker. It’s not been an easy day.

I think we all expected something to happen after playing the brand of baseball we had been playing for the past month. It was like 30 days of the same game. Like we kept hitting the replay button. There was passion and fight, but we couldn’t get anything going. Then the boos started creeping in. Listen, we know that if we lose our fans after winning the first World Championship since 1954, we’ve lost everything.

So we knew something had to be done. And today the front office and the coaches sent us a message loud and clear: No one’s safe. If you’re not delivering, there will be changes.

Ro and Miggy found themselves in a situation where they weren’t playing much. And when you have 10-plus years in the big leagues, and you have the resumes that these guys have, it’s not easy to be on the bench day after day after day. It beats you up.

I was in a similar situation, but I had an injury so I had a built-in excuse. But no matter what the reason for sitting on the bench, you feel terrible not being out there. Then when you do go out there and don’t play well, you find yourself right back on the bench. Ro and Miggy are very good players and they’ll resurface somewhere else. No doubt in my mind. Miguel Tejada will go down as one of the best shortstops ever to play the game. I will always respect what those two guys did.

Do I think the clubhouse shake-up helped us win today? It’s possible. If so, I hope it isn’t a one-game boost. Sometimes change can be the spark you need to snap back to life. We’ll see a bunch of young guys show up Friday for September call-ups. And that energy is always a welcome lift during the last month of the regular season.

Personally I’m excited for Brett Pill, who arrived today. I was down in Fresno rehabbing my wrist for three weeks and I think I spent more time with him than with some of the guys in this clubhouse! Let me tell you, the kid can play. He deserves an opportunity. So I’m excited for him to get his shot.

It’s great to have a day off tomorrow before we face Arizona. We’re six games back, and as we showed last season, that’s not insurmountable. Arizona is hot as a pistol right now. We definitely have our work cut out for us, but we’ve been in this position before. That’s what I like. We have a lot of the same guys, and every one of them is a fighter.

And at the end of the day, I like our pitching staff better than anybody’s in baseball. We just have to go out there and score runs for them. We have to play good ball. Period. End of story.

A couple weeks ago, when Matt Cain lost his second 2-1 game in a row, he stood up in front of reporters like he always does and took the blame. When I read his quotes the next day, I went over to him. I told him that every hitter in this clubhouse knows he ought to be pointing fingers at us. I told him that we as an offense feel horrible and we’re doing everything we can to figure out how to score more runs for the pitchers.

And I especially wanted him to know that we are acutely aware that he and the rest of the pitching staff are being extraordinarily kind in their public comments.

There’s only so many times you can pitch your heart out and not get any support from your team. Eventually it can cause a rift in the clubhouse. I’ve seen it happen on other teams. We’ve got such a tight-knit clubhouse. And you want to keep it that way because it’s a big part of winning baseball.

That’s why it’s so important that the pitchers know we understand their frustration. We watch TV. We read the papers. We know that Cain has gotten one run or less in 12 of his 26 starts. We know that we haven’t scored a single run for Timmy in 10 of his 27 starts. Our starters have ERAs hovering in the three’s, and Timmy’s at two and a half. You’re two and a half in today’s game and you’re nasty. You should be leading the league in wins.

I remember talking to Greg Maddox when we played together in Atlanta. We’d lose a close one and he’d be absolutely fine on the plane. I asked him one day, “Why are you OK with that?’’ And he said, “Well, I did my job. I can’t control the other things. I can only control my job.’’

I think that’s a great way to look at it, but when it starts becoming the norm, it’s got to frustrate you. And all it takes is one comment to cause a riot in the clubhouse, one comment said the wrong way. So you don’t allow that to happen. You go out to dinner with the pitchers and talk about it. You go up to a guy in the clubhouse and deal with things before they become an issue.

I’ve been on a lot of teams over the years, but I’ve never been on a team that has gone so cold offensively for such an extended period of time to where it almost has become more mental than physical. You’ve got guys pressing, trying to do too much, not staying with consistent approaches. Everyone’s trying to be the hero and get hot and get us going. But it seems to just push us more and more down.

And believe me, we take it personally. There’s not a guy in here who doesn’t take it personal. We have too good a team not to make it to the postseason. We have the greatest atmosphere in baseball right now in our home park. The most loyal fans. They deserve for us to go back to postseason. They’ve supported us all year.

I’ve also never been on a team with so many injuries to key players. We don’t have Andres Torres at the top of the order who ignited everything. You take him away, then you take away your No. 2 and No. 3 hitters, Freddy and Buster, and it’s going to cripple you. It’s not that easy to replace really, really, really good players. Players are not interchangeable parts. Then Sabes goes out and makes two great trades to replace them, and those guys get hurt.

We’ve done a great job of grinding, but at the same time, no one’s going to wait around, no one’s going to feel sorry for us. We got 30-some odd games to find a way to get into the postseason. I think when we get in, everyone will take a deep breath and then we’ll be dangerous again.

In the meantime, we have to stick together as a team. You have four months to be an individual player. I know everyone says that’s not the case but everyone plays for numbers the first four months of the season. But now it’s team first at all costs.

Which is why I’m not lobbying Bochy to give me more starts. He started me in Houston over the weekend, and I played well. Given the opportunity, I know I can help the team. That being said, I know with the struggles I’ve had with the wrist, I understand Boch opting for another guy. Two or three times over the course of my contract, I’ve asked for Bochy to give me a chance, and he’s given it. I won’t do it now. We’re in a different situation. If we were 10 games up, maybe he would give me a little more of a look. But we’re two games out and he feels he’s got to go with his big guns. All I can do is keep working hard and hoping to get into a situation where I get a big at-bat and come through and prove that I can still play and contribute.

In any case, it’s a great chance for me to be a mentor to some younger guys. And to keep showing support for our pitchers in the clubhouse until we can show more support on the field.

I was thinking the other day about last season and how each guy’s success fed the next guy’s. The inverse happens, too. No doubt about it.

Just like good hitting is contagious, so is bad hitting. I don’t know why it’s like that. Maybe if your big guys aren’t hitting, the guys below them have a tendency to think, “Well, if they’re not doing it, I’m not expected to do it.’’ Or maybe it’s the reverse: When the big guys aren’t hitting, the guys below them start pressing and try too hard.

Right now everyone’s scrapping. And you can spin out theories and explanations all day. Here’s another one I’m thinking about. If you’re a hitter, all you hear on radio and TV, and all you read in the papers, is how you’re letting down the pitchers, how awful you are with runners in scoring position. Our pitchers are so good that all they need are two or three runs, and the hitters keep failing to deliver. So you are constantly beaten over the head with this, and you start focusing on getting runs for the pitchers, for the guy in the stands reading stories about how bad you are with RISP. You’re thinking about getting a hit simply to restore a measure of respect for the beleaguered lineup. As a result, you stop just going out there and being a pro and getting good at-bats to win a ball game. You stop focusing on the narrow, straight-forward task of getting a hit off this particular pitcher at this particular moment.

It’s really pretty amazing that, given that our lineup is a shell of the one we broke camp with, that we’re hanging onto first place, or staying within striking distance. Buster goes down. Freddy goes down. You’re losing big pieces of the puzzle. You’re not just losing great hitters; you’re losing great teammates — guys who care about winning, who are not afraid to speak their mind.

And you’re asking other guys to take their places. It’s not easy to do. Guys are used to having certain roles with this team and– boom — everything changes. Whitey’s never been asked to catch every day. Nate’s not accustomed to playing every day. Brandon Crawford. Manny Burriss. A lot of guys are being asked to play not above their abilities but above what they were prepared for.

If we can find a way to grind through this, we’re going to be better team and a closer team. We have to figure out how to keep ourselves above water until we can get some guys back. As we found out last year, it’s doesn’t matter how you get into the playoffs. It doesn’t have to be pretty. We made it last year on the final day of the season. All that matters is getting in.

As for me, I’m graduating from the fungo bat and batting tee to real bats and real pitches. I’m trying different models of bats to figure out what might work best with my wrist. If I have learned anything during my long road of rehab, it’s patience. Not that I have a choice. It’s either learn patience or go home. And I’m not ready yet to go home. I wish someone could assure me there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re pretty much in uncharted waters. No one has an answer. And the only other guy in the majors with the same injury, Jay Gibbons, is no longer in the majors. He was designated for assignment by the Dodgers two weeks ago.

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. I flew home to Georgia after seeing my surgeon in Cleveland. I spent six days with my family and got to take my daughter to the last day of second grade. I had time to relax a little and think about everything that’s happened in the last year and a half.

As you might have read, I’m not having surgery. My torn tendon will simply remain torn. (It basically rolled up into my arm like a snapped rubber band.) Because the tendon is gone, it can no longer cause me pain. So that was the good news. The bad news is that my days of being an every-day player are in serious jeopardy.

The last couple of days, I’ve picked the brain of Dodgers outfielder Jay Gibbons, the only guy in the big leagues who has played with the same injury. He said I’ll have to figure out for myself how to maximize the strength and stability in the wrist.

“I had to change bat models a bunch of times,’’ he said. “I had to make adjustments with my swing. You’re definitely not going to be what you remember being.’’

I’ll rehab for the next few weeks then I’ll see where I am. I want to be sure that when I come in as a pinch-hitter, I can get to a heater, that I can go to my backhand and not have my glove do something funny.

I rejoined the team in St. Louis in time to see Aubrey hit his three home runs. It’s always cool when you get a chance to see something like that.

I know he was feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders after scuffling for the first two months. I’m sure those home runs had to feel unbelievable for him. And we need him.

It’s been fun to have an infusion of new guys from the minors. They always bring a lot of energy into the clubhouse. They’re so excited to be here, and they’re so eager to pick your brain and talk to you.

In the dugout the other day, Darren Ford was talking about stealing bases and asked what I’m thinking when I get to first after a hit. I had to laugh. Stealing has never been a part of my game, so basically I’m thinking, “Nice hit. Take your lead and hope the next guy drives the ball into the gap.’’

He’s the complete opposite. He’s reading leg kicks and slide steps and studying the catcher and calculating times. The thing that’s impressive about him is that everyone in the entire park knows he’s going. And he still steals the base. There aren’t too many people in the world who can get around the bases like that. He runs with an attitude on him. He’s coming around third with a purpose. Once he figures out what works for him offensively, he is going to be unbelievable. I told him just to keep doing what he’s doing and it will all come together.

I’ve loved watching Brandon Crawford. You could tell in spring training that he was smooth. When I was back in Georgia, I watched every inning of every Giants games, and I jumped off the couch when he hit that grand slam.

That’s one of the nice things about Crawford and the other young guys being in big-league camp. When they’re called up, we know what kind of kids they are. We know what they’re about. It’s an easier transition than just shooting up here and no one’s ever met you.

But it’s weird to walk into the clubhouse and not see Buster. I texted him and told him I’m thinking about him and to call if he needed to vent. He just needs to take his time and heal completely. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. We know as a team we can’t replace him. He’s a special talent. But we’re all competitors, so you move on. You have to. There is no other option. When Buster comes back next year, it will be a breath of fresh air. But until then, we have to find ways to win. And we are.

On the one hand, I’m not willing to buy into stories that say this is a career-ending injury. On Wednesday, I’ll see the doctor in Cleveland who did the original surgery. When I talked to him on the phone, he seemed pretty optimistic. He said he’s seen this happen before with the kind of surgery I had. More surgery is not necessarily the answer. So I’m pretty encouraged.

And what people might not understand is that even though I’m 36, I was just a spot player for the first five years of my career. I had a total of maybe 500 to 600 at-bats, which is what most full-time players have in one season. So I have a lot of swings left in my arms and hands.

On the other hand, I’m a realist. I know now that my wrist was the reason I was 0-for-23 since coming off the DL. My left wrist and hand are the keys to my hitting. I’m not a top-hand guy who tries to pull everything. I try to swing through the ball and drive it up the middle. But I could feel my top hand totally taking over. Which is why I was rolling a lot of balls to third. And why I wasn’t getting around on fastballs, a problem I’ve never had.

The crazy-making part was that I had no pain. So I didn’t think it was the wrist. I walked into Bochy’s office two weeks ago and asked him to trust me and play me and give me a shot to prove myself. As the 0-fers mounted, I’d go home or the hotel and try to figure out what was wrong. . I hardly got the ball out of the infield. I had noticed something off in batting practice. I’d hit balls and it would feel the same as always but the balls were landing 20 feet in front of where they usually did.

Even after 23 at-bats without a hit, I continued to chalk it up to being rusty.

Until the burst of pain in Los Angeles last Wednesday.

So the big question for my doctor is: What are the chances that I’ll play again at the level I’m accustomed to playing?

If he says I could be a contributing player if I spent the next year rehabbing, I would do it, even though I know it would be emotionally tough to sit out another season. And I’m cognizant of the possibility that I could be doing long-term damage to my wrist if I keep playing. I don’t want to end up, down the road, unable to play catch with my son or golf with my friends.

But I love this game. I love being on this team with these guys. When I came off the DL earlier this season, the team was struggling a little bit. Someone said to me, “Glad you’re coming back. They really need you.’’

There are few things worse for a professional athlete than being on the disabled list. You’re kind of in no man’s land. You’re a part of the team but you’re not. My wrist has been such a frustrating injury. I don’t want to equate it to Tommy John surgery because it’s not on that level. But the guys I talk to who have had Tommy John surgery say they went through the same thing I’m going through now: One day you wake up and feel great. The next day you wake up and you’re in terrible pain. And you don’t know why. That’s what I’ve been battling. I can’t wait for the day when I’m not talking about this anymore.

In the meantime, when you can’t contribute on the field, you have to figure out how to still be a good teammate. I watch the game closely from the dugout. I watch how the pitcher is attacking our hitters. So when guys come back from the plate, I can help them dissect their at-bats, talk about what the pitcher was trying to do. A lot of guys – Sanchez, Huff, Rowand, Burrell, Buster – they love to talk hitting. So I can be a sounding board.

And I’ve always been pretty good at reading people, so I feel pretty comfortable about figuring out who needs to be kicked in the butt, who needs to be patted on the back, when to say something, when to bite my tongue. The guys encouraged me to do this last season. They kind of built me up and asked me to stay on top of them, to keep the bench going. So I took that seriously and contributed however I could.

But I hate not playing. To be honest with you, last year was the worst season of my career. You bust your tail your whole life to get to the big leagues and win a World Series and the one time you get there, you have completely nothing to do with it. It was a tough pill to swallow.

But I used last season as a chance to step back and see the game from an unselfish point of view. When you’re playing, you’re so wrapped up in your particular job — your four at-bats, your ground balls — you feel like if you put in four good ABs and catch everything hit to you, then you’ve done your job and that’s that. But when you’re not playing, you see the game from a much broader perspective. I realize now how hard Boch’s job is, how many different personalities he has to manage.

I’m hoping my time on the DL will get my wrist back to 100 percent. If I took away anything from last season, it’s an even deeper desire to be healthy and contributing on the field. The most important thing to me as a ball player is to help my team win. Nothing else matters.

I had a long talk with Brandon before he left for Fresno last week. We talked about how baseball is a constant work-in-progress. The route to becoming an established major-leaguer is rarely a straight line. He understands that going to Fresno is simply part of the process.

So I hope he doesn’t feel in any way that he failed. He didn’t fail at anything. Just two years ago, the guy was in college. Since then it’s been a whirlwind for him. In one year, he went from Single A, to Double A, Triple A, Arizona Fall League. You heard about this guy coming the whole time. The Giants have done a tremendous job bringing him along, but I think the expectations from the fans and the media were huge.

Then he comes to spring camp, and the media is following his every move.

Then you face big-league pitching. Guys he’s never faced before. He couldn’t make an out without people second-guessing him. It just seems like a lot for a young kid to take in.

And on top of that you’re following Buster, who I think is unequivocally the best young player I’ve ever see come up. You follow in those footsteps — that’s pretty tough to reproduce if that’s what people are expecting. And Brandon handled it well. He’s going to be just fine. He’ll take a deep breath, process what happened and make the necessary adjustments to come back up. He knows he has some things he needs to work on. And I think he knows the next time up it will be different.

I went back and forth to the minors when I started with the Braves. I had the skills, but I wasn’t ready for the major leagues because I wasn’t confident enough. I was still in awe of it. I was in awe of the whole thing. Being a big league player was my dream as a kid. Then I get drafted by Braves and when I got called up the first time, I walked into the clubhouse more as a fan than as someone with a job to do. So it took me a little bit to get over the fact that these are my teammates now. That I belonged up there. But I think that’s good. There has to be that awe factor when you get to the big leagues. Otherwise what the heck are you playing for?

Next time: The particular challenges of staying ready when you don’t know when, where and if you’re playing on any given day. And: Patience as a virtue is over-rated: I am really, really ready to feel 100 percent again.

Just finished the final game against the Cardinals. We couldn’t pull off the sweep, it’s been a weekend we’ll never forget with the flag-raising on Friday and the rings on Saturday.

For me to open that box and see the World Series ring, it just put a stamp on a lot of hard work even though I was injured and wasn’t able to play last season. You look at that ring and think about playing catch with your dad and your brother in the yard, dreaming of playing in the bigs and then seeing it come to fruition. You’ve got to take a step back and think how far each and every guy in this clubhouse has come.

When I look at that ring, I’ll always remember Huffy’s red thong, the emergence of the bullpen, the moves Boch and Brian Sabean made, the two-out knock Freddy Sanchez got in Atlanta. All those things will come back. The ring is a just a beautiful representation of a miraculous season.

But I don’t think I’ll ever wear it. I’ll keep it in my office at home in Atlanta as a conversation piece. I’m not a big jewelry guy. Other than my wedding band, I’ve never worn a ring. And second, I would have loved to be on the field when it all happened.

So while the ring is something I’m really proud of, it’s not something I feel like I earned.

It was interesting that the same day we got the rings, we played a game that was the perfect symbol of what we were all about last season. We came from behind to beat the Cardinals in the ninth inning on Miggy’s double. That’s how we won a lot of games last year – not giving up, fighting the whole way. And that’s why I think the fans rallied around this team. Because outside of Timmy, there were no superstars. There were so many players for little kids and adults to latch onto. Your favorite player could have been anybody in the lineup – Freddy Sanchez or Cody Ross or Andres Torres. There were a lot of good guys to go around.

As great as all the flag-raising and ring ceremonies have been, we’re looking forward to getting back to some normalcy. Ballplayers are creatures of habit. So hopefully as we get back into our routines, you’ll start to see more consistent ball.

It’s fun to watch a guy like Brandon Belt because it brings back memories of my own first year. I got called up to the majors for the first time on September 2, 1998. I was playing in Zebulon, North Carolina, for the Pirates’ Double A team. I was shocked. I wasn’t on the 40-man-nothin’. I was 23 years old, a year-and-a-half in the pros. I ran outside and called my dad and he didn’t believe me. I was in a complete panic when I walked into the major-league clubhouse. I knew to keep my head down and my mouth shut. Though you know you have skills, you can’t help wondering if you really belong up there. Until you perform in front of 20,000 people in a stadium with the world watching, you don’t know if you can do it. It took me three call-ups before I got comfortable. It’s such a huge leap from the minors to the majors. It’s night and day. The intensity is different. The stadiums. The pitchers are completely different. Even to this day, I have moments where I’m proving to myself I belong. I remember getting a hit off Mariano River and going to first and thinking, “OK.’’ I remember going against Randy Johnson and getting a walk. You get to this level and then there are levels within this level that you test yourself against.

What I’d tell Brandon Belt is to take it all in because this first season happens only once. Your dream is being realized right in front of you. Expect to be nervous. Realize you’re going to feel different than you have ever felt playing baseball. Pick the brains of the older guys. Carry yourself like a professional, meaning that every day you walk into the clubhouse you’re the same guy, no matter how you did the day before. And you have to always be confident that whatever situation you’re in, you can handle it. If you don’t have that mentality up here, you’ll get chewed up.

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The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions.